My Top 10 Most Influential Books

I’ve been taking a break from blogging to tend to the regular demands of family life.  I am resurfacing this morning to share a booklist.  I compiled this booklist in response to a Facebook challenge from my sister.  It was a fun exercise.  This is not a list of the best 10 books I have ever read, but rather the most influential.  And so much of how a books hits you is related to where you are at a given point in your life when you read the book.  The Lamb’s Supper came into my hands just as I was in the process of converting to Catholicism.  I read Joni’s autobiography as a young teenage girl, and it completely changed my outlook on life.  You get the point.

I am looking for new reading material, so I’d love  for you to share your top 10 most influential books.  If the book is not widely known, please give a brief explanation as to why it makes your top 10.  Oh, and here is an inspirational quote for the morning from one of my top 10 books.  I cry every time I read this book, so I’ve limited myself to only reading it a few times a year.

Real isn’t how you are made…It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real…When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt…It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

1. The Bible

2. The Brothers Karamazov– Dostoyevsky

3. The Velveteen Rabbit — Williams

4. Story of a Soul — St. Therese

5. Pride and Prejudice — Austen

6. The Scarlet Letter — Hawthorne

7. Charlotte’s Web — E. B. White

8. Omnivore’s Dilemma — Pollen

9. The Autobiography of Joni Eareckson

10. The Lamb’s Supper — Hahn

Your turn!